Friday, November 30, 2007

I thought I was a pretty avid reader until I met my husband John. John MUST read while eating. John takes hour long showers with a book in hand (hence our books are never in loanable condition and our paperbacks are not stackable. I will have to post pictures of the murder John commits on his books). The great thing is he really knows my taste in books. He passes about 1 in 4 or 5 on to me (He reads much faster than I do. He can go through a book in a day easily, I take a week or so, depending on how hard the book is to put down.)

And I really need to make myself a list of books. I have seen some good recommendations on the blogs I lurk and I have NO excuses since I work right across the street from the Bend library. So shoot me off some recommendations! I am currently between books so I need some ASAP! I like fiction and historical novels best. Sci-fi and fantasy for sure.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Jaxon is starting to get excited about the Christmas Season. He is having a hard time grasping that it is Christmas time but not yet Christmas day.

He was very excited to see the lights Daddy had put up while we were gone for the day. And when he saw the decorations I had put out after he was in bed, his first thought was that Santa had come and decorated our house. We are having fun singing Christmas carols on the ride home each night too (my car radio/cd player went haywire a couple of days ago - coincidence? or my dear friend the rat?). "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" has come in handy at bedtime this week as well, particularly the part about "He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows if you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good..." not holding it over his head, but he sure is considering the fact that Santa is watching!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

So we got back yesterday from spending the Thanksgiving holiday with my side of the family in Seattle. No sign of the rat during that time, but when we got back I set the trap again. This morning the trap had been sprung, the peanut butter gone, but no rat in the trap. No signs of nesting under the hood but now I worry he just burrowed deeper (like in the dashboard somewhere?) where I just can't see what damage he might be doing. My stereo went haywire on the trip back when I ejected a cd. Hope that is not related but my guess is it probably is.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

So, for the past few mornings I have had to clear out the nest that the rat has rebuilt. I finally got a trap set last night but no luck catching the bugger. BUT the good news is this morning there was no nesting materials to be removed so maybe he finally gave up and moved out!

Friday, November 16, 2007

So my car was having problems with the starter (so I thought). Guess I should have popped the hood to take a look myself before dropping it off at the mechanic to have it checked. He called not long after to say he thought he had found the problem.

This is what he found in my engine compartment (if you click on the link it will open a larger version of the photos in my picasa web)

22 pieces of kindling, sunglasses, 5 wooden clothes pins, plumbers tape, 4 christmas ornaments, kite string, 6 rocks, a granola bar, two scoops, garden hose parts, a screwdriver, a sharpie pen, socks, rags, and a ton of chewed up paper. He said although he sees this fairly often, in 20+ years as a mechanic he has never seen anything close to this.

And to cap it all off? The little bugger is still in there and won't come out. Even though I commute 25 miles each way to work and drove 18 miles each way to the mechanic today (at 65-70 mph). They even tried to smoke him (or her) out and had no luck.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Why not? I read Tony's blog start to finish and will continue to read it. Got me to thinking again. I have never been one to begrudge a homeless person some change. So what if they use it to buy a beer? I like a beer now and then too. Just cause their homeless they can't have a drink? So you're contributing to their habit. They don't have much else in life and chances are they aren't going to ditch the habit anytime soon. Don't want to give change? Ask them if you can buy them a coffee or lunch. And take some time to sit down and chat with them. These are PEOPLE. And most of them don't have much happiness, hope, friendship or love in their lives. Spread a little. Especially if you have all of the above in abundance.

When I worked at Starbucks on “The Ave” (University Way) in Seattle in college there were 2-3 older guys who were regulars out front. We had to dump the coffee each hour and brew fresh and we always filled their cups first before dumping and gave them the leftover pastries at the end of the day. Wasn’t much but we liked those guys.

So now I live in Central Oregon and we don’t see that many homeless on the streets, but there are some and some local shelters. I really need to check into doing more. But I was also thinking that it would be nice to start an “adopt a local” kind of thing, especially in bigger cities. I often refrained from dropping coins in big cities because in a few blocks I would see so many and I couldn’t make up my mind which cap to put it in. But what about “adopting” someone you pass by frequently, like the gal who makes Tony sandwiches, and Phil who hosts Tony's blog and has befriended him, and like we did back in the day at Starbucks? But make it an actual campaign with some real reaching out and friendship involved. Get to know the person. Invite them to dinner or to stay the night on occassion (I mean really, if they have hung out on the same corner for years and you see them everyday, the chances of something bad happening are slim).

At the very least pass on your extra clothes to them, or backpacks and other gear when cleaning out the closet, or just buy something on sale you think they could use. Wish I had more time to organize something like that.

So I was running late (thanks to not being able to get off the phone to leave work yesterday) for two consecutive appointments in Redmond (1/2 hour away) one for Jaxon's flu shot and one for my yearly checkup. Sure enough, I was exactly 10 minutes late to the first appt., having left exactly 10 minutes late from work, and traffic was heavy (for Central Oregon) so I was doing my stressed driver commentary "come on! come on people, move!" and I hear Jaxon pipe up from the back seat, "We have to be patient!" Thanks for the reminder peanut, your right, I need to be patient. Good to see that he really does grasp the concept. So far he hasn't demonstrated that he does.

Somewhere along the line, not sure how (not from me certainly) he discovered that shots hurt. Last year, and for past shots, he has been great. No worries at all about getting a shot. In fact last year he didn't even peep or flinch and even asked when we were done, unconcerned, if he was going to get another shot. This year, as soon as he heard he was getting a shot, he started to panic. We had to hold him down as he went rigid and struggled (broke my heart!) to give him the shot, which of course made it hurt worse than it otherwise would have. He was a trooper afterward though, especially when he got a bandaid. As a typical 3 year old he loves bandaids.

And driving into town we had to pass McD's which prompted him to demand nuggets. So I promised him that after Mommy's check up we would go get nuggets. Ugg. Two visits to McD's in one day. This time I stuck to a salad as I was greased out for the day. Jaxon on the other hand devoured a 6 piece nugget happy meal. Hungry boy.

This morning he realized half way into Bend that he had left his McD toy (Wally the Waterbug) and whined about it the rest of the way. I swear he plays with some of the McD's toys more than his other toys. Particularly the movie toys. He loves his cars from Cars (wish we had more of the set) and now he has two of the Bee Movie characters which he has been carrying around with him everywhere he goes. Cheap entertainment. At least the neutral toys or boys toys are usually pretty cool. The girly stuff tends to suck. My sister was totally disgusted when we went with the kids back in October and my niece's meal (she is only 3!) included a Bratz figure. I am so glad I have a boy. Even if our second child is a girl, at least she will have a brother and hopefully not be too much of a girly girl.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

So yeah, I likes me a double cheeseburger and large fry from MickeyD's on occassion. Today was such an occassion. I am blessed with a metabolism and overall good health to handle this unhealthy choice from time to time.

So while eating I happened to read the non-nutritional label on the wrappers. Fries, no suprise there that I was getting 47% of my calorie/fat intake for the day from fries or that they had 14% of my daily recommended sodium intake. Oh well.

Double cheeseburger: calories/fat 35% - again no surprise

But what is this? 1150mg of sodium?!??!! 48% of my daily sodium? How does that much sodium get into a cheeseburger?

So in one meal I got 82% of my calories/fat for the day and 62% of my sodium. Oh well, I don't eat much the rest of the day anyway. Really, lunch tends to be my biggest (but rarely healthiest) meal.

Well this morning went a little smoother than yesterday. Yesterday morning the crying started before J was even awake. I usually try to slip at least his socks on before he wakes up. Yesterday the littlest touch evoked wails. It was a good 15 minute struggle to get him dressed through tears which promptly started again when we hit the car without "Santa" the snow globe (minus snow) that he found in the hall closet the night before. So the first half of the 25 mile drive into town consisted of sobs and wails over Santa followed by a fresh set upon discovering a "samwich" in his lunch bag rather than yogurt. Whatever was I thinking? After all, the only thing he wanted all weekend were PBJ sandwiches. WHY would he want one in his lunch bag? So this bout continued the rest of the way in to daycare and beyond. He did not want to let go of the yogurt issue although I did finally get him to calm down with promises that we would go to the store and buy yogurt when I picked him up after work. His teacher helped too by getting the "special" box of scoopers and diggers down along with the rice table for digging in just for him.

Today was relatively uneventful. I even managed to get him half dressed before he woke up. There were a few tears but they disappeared quickly, a few more followed by demands that I remove the carrots and fruit from his lunch bag (damn those clear plastic zip lock bags! daycare won't allow lunchboxes or bags because they are too bulky for the fridge). But we made it to the car on time with few tears and were happily on our way. I even got to listen to Kidd Kraddic up until the last couple of miles of the journey before demands for "Moose" began. And I got happy kisses (cheek, cheek, nose, forehead, chin) with my "goodbye see you later" before he ran off to play with his friends.

So I consider myself pretty computer literate but can I get a picture to post in my profile? No. Not even using my picasa web pics which are hosted by GOOGLE for crying out loud. So I guess I will just try posting some pics in my post.

This is me (Amy) and my 3 year old son Jaxon on his first visit to Disneyland back in May.

So - Since I have been reading and commenting on other people's blogs I figured I better get off my butt and start one myself. Afterall, if I hope to establish any sort of meaningful blog friendships, I need to contribute as well.

I am not much of a writer though so we'll see just how miserably I fail at this...